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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29172171">FebuWhump Day 2 "I can't take it anymore"</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneWeasel/pseuds/InsaneWeasel'>InsaneWeasel</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft - Fandom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Animal Death, Death, Demons?, FebuWhump 2021 Day 2, M/M, Refuse to use IRL names, Serial Killers, not super shippy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 12:01:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,677</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29172171</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneWeasel/pseuds/InsaneWeasel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Stephen King cliché AU—in where kids find true evil, cliché and then it hunts them to adulthood. Not fully formed idea (not my finest work, more just feeling out characters I’ve never written before).</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>FebuWhump Day 2 "I can't take it anymore"</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>George’s back was to the wall, his heart thudding in his chest. His eyes went to the door. It hadn’t fully latched, but he couldn’t move to close it entirely now. It would give his position away. On the other side of the door he could hear the soft final footsteps of someone ascending the stairs.</p><p>The scrape of a knife against wood—an absent noise from the hefty blade in the killer’s hand hitting the bannister.</p><p>How’d he get here?</p><p>His life flashed before his eyes.</p><p>
  <em>…</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Years ago. When George was ten. This started. </em>
</p><p>“We shouldn’t be here,” Bad muttered. He was hanging back as far as he could, but not too far from Ant, who was holding the flashlight. Sapnap had his own flashlight and was leading the way, and George trailed between.</p><p>“Relax. I’ve seen those older guys in here all the time,” Sap reassured. “They probably have something cool stashed in here. Or like a secret lair. Or I don’t know…”</p><p>Sap put his hand to the wall of the cave and shined the flashlight down a dark tunnel that was about a foot high and then towards their current path which was narrow and hardly tall enough for all of them to comfortably walk through. If any of the older guys came in here, they must have to crawl.</p><p>“I think we made a wrong turn,” George reasoned, glancing behind him at Ant’s calm, but similarly reluctant face. He nodded at that, but Sapnap shook his head.</p><p>“Just a little bit more! We’ll turn back if we don’t find anything.”</p><p>“What if there’s bats in here? Or I don’t know—wolves?”</p><p>“There’s no wolves in the UK!” Sapnap said defiantly.</p><p>“There could be a bear in here?” Bad said.</p><p>“He’d have to be a skinny bear,” George said, turning sideways to avoid a jutting edge in the stone. The two behind him followed suit and Sapnap stalled up ahead, running the flashlight up the wall of stone. It was a little higher in here, but only by a head.</p><p>“Dead end?” Ant questioned.</p><p>“No,” Sapnap said and stepped to the side, letting the other three crowd into the closet sized space.</p><p>A crack was in the stone up ahead, rocks piled on either side of the crack. A painting of a face and other images were on the sides, nearly faded to extinction. Only when Ant waved the flashlight over them a couple of times, did George make out that they were drawings.</p><p>“This must be their lair? Less cool then I…thought,” George said. “I don’t think there’s any Pokemon cards in there.”</p><p>“It’s giving me a bad feeling,” Bad said. “Let’s just go. We need to get home earlier this time.”</p><p>“Let’s go in,” Sapnap suggested. He had to practically squeeze himself through the crack, sucking his stomach in and shimmying his shoulders until he was through. “It’s bigger on the other side. A lot! It’s like a room!”</p><p>Sapnap had moved away from the opening, his flashlight disappearing further into the opening, so George quickly followed, and Ant concerned bent down, tucking his flashlight under his chin to try and squeeze through the crack at the bottom where it was a little wider.</p><p>“Guys!” Bad said panicked. “Don’t just—fine, I’m coming. Don’t leave me out here.” George got through with some effort, but straightened and dusted his hands off on his pockets to see Sapnap shining the flashlight up at the paintings and old torches on the wall, that were—well, obviously, out. They looked ancient.</p><p>Ant behind him shined the flashlight in the center of the room to the big stone in the middle. He thought it looked like a well of some type, but it was covered.</p><p>Bad made it through with some muttered anxieties about their situation before he straightened, standing between George and Ant and hesitantly looking around the place.</p><p>“I don’t think this is the college kid’s hideout,” Bad said.</p><p>George nodded. “Looks too…old?”</p><p>“Lots of old things around England,” Ant commented.</p><p>“But what old thing is this?” George questioned, nudging the stone well with his foot.</p><p>Sapnap was bored looking at the pictures and turned his attention to the stone well. “Oh, I think it’s like a…what’s the word. A grave but not underground—”</p><p>“We’re in a grave?” Bad was alarmed.</p><p>“I hope not,” Ant said.</p><p>“There better not be a dead body in there or I’m telling my mum you were the one who ruined the clothes lines, not me,” Bad began rattling off.</p><p>“Want to try and look inside?” Sapnap suggested, turning to George and Ant, and nudging the stone cover with arm.</p><p>“I don’t think we can move that,” George argued.</p><p>Ant passed the flashlight to Bad and helped Sapnap. George went to Sapnap’s other side and the three pushed against the stone cover. No luck. It felt like it almost budged, but with a great heave, the children gave up. Sapnap looked at Bad who had his arms crossed across his chest.</p><p>“Come on, help us.”</p><p>“Piss off,” Bad said.</p><p>“Either help us, or go on home,” Sapnap snapped.</p><p>“Just so you know. I think we shouldn’t do this,” Bad said, tucking the flashlight under his arm and joining them on one side to push against the stone cover. They managed to move it a few inches this time, and with another good heave push it entirely off the stone well</p><p>Ant was the first to recover his wits, and peer over the edge. “Someone shine a light down here.”</p><p>“Got it,” Sap had his light pointed over the edge. “Oh.”</p><p>“What is it—” Bad shined his flashlight over the edge and winced. “It’s almost worse than a dead body. Darkness. Great.”</p><p>“So, it is a well?” George said, looking into the darkness.</p><p>“I don’t think there’s water down there.”</p><p>“Anyone have anything we can throw down it?”</p><p>Ant checked his pockets and pulled out a pencil. “Got this.”</p><p>“Toss it in then!”</p><p>The boys waited for a moment as Ant dropped it in the middle, and waited to see if they heard something.</p><p>“Did you hear it hit the bottom?” Sapnap questioned impatiently.</p><p>“Maybe it’s too light to make a noise,” Bad said, and searched his own pockets, balancing the flashlight on the edge. “I think I have a few coins. Gimme a second.”</p><p>He ended up nudging the flashlight over the edge and George and Ant scrambled for it, but it was too late. They followed the light down and it landed with a loud clang against more stone. It illuminated at the bottom the dropped pencil as well as what looked like something down there, like a cave.</p><p>“Don’t suppose anyone sees a rope or ladder or stairs down there?” George proposed.</p><p>“Damn it. My father’s going to kill me. I borrowed these from his toolshed,” Sapnap said, gesturing with the remaining flashlight.  </p><p>“I don’t think we’re getting that other one back,” George remarked.</p><p>“No need to state the obvious,” Ant sniffed. They backed away from the well and glanced around the room, hoping to see something else worth their time. Bad stuck near Sapnap since he had the only light near and Ant leaned against the well, staring at the pictures on the wall. Most were too faded to make sense of.</p><p>George glanced back over the edge of the well absently as he circled the room and saw the flashlight below flicker. He reapproached the well and glanced over, just in time to see the flashlight turn off.</p><p>“The flashlight went out down there!” George exclaimed.</p><p>“We should leave!” Bad immediately said.</p><p>“Prolly the batteries knocked loose,” Sapnap said, turning to face George, bringing the flashlight with him to shine over the edge. Ant didn’t even turn around as Sapnap tried using the flashlight to see down below. Even with Sapnap, sticking his hand down in the well, the light didn’t reach the bottom. “Whatever. We’ll go. I’m hungry.”</p><p>“You know, this could still make a good story to tell Skeppy. He likes when you tell him of our adventures, Bad,” Ant suggested and Bad shook his head. “Sapnap, can you shine the light on the way we came in so we can all get out.”</p><p>“Yeah, Bad you want to go first?”</p><p>“Ant can,” Bad volunteered Ant who snorted.</p><p>“Scared the boogeymen followed us here and are just waiting for us to leave to finally get us,” George teased, elbowing Bad who elbowed him back harder.</p><p>Ant fake screamed before laughing. “I’m out. Come on, Bad.”</p><p>Bad jumped, then elbowed George again, as if it had been his idea. “Cut it out. Fine. Fine.”</p><p>Sapnap and George exchanged looks, as Sapnap held the flashlight pointed at the edge, waving it a little in slight tease as Bad wormed his way through the gap. George went next, but a noise startled him and Sapnap when he was only one arm through.</p><p>Sapnap swept the flashlight over to the source of the noise, startling Bad and Ant who he plunged into darkness doing that.</p><p>“Hey!”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>Sapnap’s light finally landed on the pencil on the ground near the well. He tensed, almost in disbelief, but then with a sort of cocky assurance, approached the well again, and glanced to George.</p><p>George understood the unspoken message. He crossed to stand next to Sapnap as he swept the light down again into the well.</p><p>Nothing. Just darkness.</p><p>“Guys? Hello? We’re stuck in darkness and I don’t like it,” Bad complained.</p><p>“Thought we heard something,” George answered, staring over the edge. He wasn’t really comprehending the darkness, until it suddenly wasn’t darkness. The flashlight had turned on down there, but it was being held by someone. His brain was able to pick out a white face peering up at him, flashlight in hand pointed up at them when Sapnap yelled and startled enough to take a few steps away from the well, leaving George with the ghastly visage of only the illuminated smile below.</p><p>“What!”</p><p>“Someone’s down there!” Sapnap said.</p><p>“Let’s go!” Bad yelled insistent and George agreed, backing away from the well and to the crack in the wall. He grabbed the flashlight from Sapnap when he was halfway through, holding it for Sapnap so he could work his way through. Bad was clutching Ant’s arm, glancing between them and the way they came in desperately. “We need to go!”</p><p>“I know!” George said. “Sapnap, you good?”</p><p>“I’m good,” Sapnap said, straightening. “I’ll lead us out.”</p><p>“Quickly, please,” Bad said, practically shoving Sapnap as he tightly squeezed past Ant and George to take the lead. He was the one who knew the caves best, but it meant George was taking the back as they left, staying as close as he could to Sapnap, but left in near darkness due to their now limited light sources.</p><p>As they squeezed through the tight passages they took before, George found his heart getting steadily faster and more nervous, his sweaty hands picking up more dirt than they ought to as they scraped across the walls of the cave as he followed the sound of Bad’s voice and Sapnap’s light.</p><p>It felt like something was right behind them. George knew it would do him no good. There was no light behind them. He wouldn’t be able to see.</p><p>But he glanced behind them.</p><p>And saw nothing.</p><p>But it felt. Like there was something behind them.</p><p>Eventually, they got out of their tight passageway they took and were back into the parts of the cave they knew better, jogging lightly to get out of their faster until they were in the parts lit by sunlight. They were dirt-covered, sweaty and a little shaken, but after a moment, Sapnap laughed.</p><p>“You guys should have seen your faces,” Sapnap said, laughing.</p><p>“What?” Bad questioned, indignant.</p><p>“It was probably nothing. Just a moth, right George?”</p><p>George thought back to the terrible smiling face below. “Yeah.”</p><p>…</p><p>[Present Day]</p><p>But as George knew now. It hadn’t been a moth. He felt his hand shaking as he leaned his head back and held his breath, his ears practically homed in only on the featherlight footsteps right outside the door. The steps passed the door after a moment, but George didn’t take a proper breath in, just breathing ever so slightly through his nose.</p><p>After all this time. It was back.</p><p>It hunted them. It killed some people then.</p><p>It’d do it again.</p><p>The first death was someone near the sight last time.  </p><p>…</p><p>[Past]</p><p>George woke up in the morning without a thought to the day’s events before. There was no reason to be bothered by them, even as he headed off to school. It remained a forgotten trip until he and his friends had made it home and were about to write off the hasty essays and what not and be off to their own devices.</p><p>When George’s mom shook her head as he came in, holding the phone. “Oh, George. Not today. Stay in. There’s been an accident near here. The neighbor’s son. He—He fell terribly ill.”</p><p>Terribly ill had been a very nice way to say found disemboweled in his bed, his head missing. A very gory death.</p><p>The boys discussed it at school the next day. Only Bad and George seemed to reckon it was connected to the cave. “No child murderers live here! We’d have heard of it before if they had,” Bad reasoned.</p><p>“Unless a child murderer just moved here,” Sapnap said.</p><p>“I reckon child murderers don’t live places. They just keep moving,” Ant said.</p><p>“I feel like there was something in the cave,” George said. “What we saw was probably a moth, but it felt creepy in there.”</p><p>“Not you too,” Sapnap muttered, taking a bite of his sandwich. “I think you’re over-blowing it.”</p><p>But that had only been the first death. The second one, hit much closer to home. While George’s mom had prevented him from hanging out with the others the other day, his father had no same fears and let him leave after he confirmed he finished his chores and what not.</p><p>They were in Ant’s backyard, play fencing with swords when Ant gave a cry. “She hasn’t come back!”</p><p>“Who?”</p><p>“Mimi.”</p><p>“Doesn’t she normally spend all day sunbathing out here,” Bad questioned, ducking Sapnap’s attempted foul move of knocking him upside the head. “She’s too old to go far.”</p><p>“But she always comes when it’s dinner time,” Ant muttered. “Mimi,” he called out at the woods, beckoning for his old, arthritis ridden cat.</p><p>No cat came.</p><p>George had been taking a break and got up, stepping past Sapnap who was doing an impressive job of blocking every hit. “Let’s go look for her,” he suggested to Ant.</p><p>They didn’t have to go far.</p><p>They saw the figure, yellow, bright and hunched over a carcass with a collar on it. The white mask stained red.</p><p>“Mimi!” Ant cried out, and he charged the figure, only being held back by George, as the figure straightened, its white face turning to look at them. “My cat!”</p><p>“Ant!”</p><p>The figure started towards them and George pulled Ant with him back towards his yard. They stopped only when they hit the backporch. Ant was sniveling quietly to himself, and George’s eyes were peeled on the small woods.</p><p>Nothing came out of it. But if he squinted he could see a white mask behind the trees.</p><p>Sapnap and Bad lowered their wooden sticks, glancing to the two with obvious concern. “Oh god, did she finally croak?” Sapnap questioned.</p><p>“Something killed her! I saw her dead body!”</p><p>“And the thing from the cave was hunched over her,” George said.</p><p>“What—you said you didn’t see anything?” Bad protested, suddenly suspicious. “This isn’t a prank?”</p><p>“No—”</p><p>“I didn’t see anything hunched over, Mimi,” Ant said, wiping at his tears. “What are you—”</p><p>“The thing holding the flashlight in the cave,” George said turning to Sapnap. “You saw it! It was in those woods hunched over the cat!”</p><p>“I only saw the floating flashlight,” Sapnap said. “Nothing—why would only you be able to see it?”</p><p>“I don’t know!” George said. He glanced to the woods. “It’s out there. Watching us. I can feel it.”</p><p>The boys went silent, eyes turning to the woods. “Where is it at?” Bad whispered.</p><p>George focused on the woods, but he couldn’t make out any mask shapes within it. “I’m not sure. I just—I just can.” He made eye contact with the pale white face.</p><p>…</p><p>[Present]</p><p>George inched away from the wall, further into the room. He could grab something. This time, the thing knew what George could do. It knew George could put him back in there. That George alone had the power to vanquish him.</p><p>Maybe that’s why this time it went after his friends first. Ant was a cat now, there was no curing that. Bad was…wasn’t human anymore either.</p><p>He was the only one that could do anything now. George took a deep breath, feeling his heart lock in his throat. There was no escaping it. However, it had gotten out again. Clearly. It wasn’t permanent. Someone had let it out. One of them had to. It took four of them to put it back. It’d only have taken one of them to let it out.</p><p>But they got rid of it. They vanquished it. Or so he thought.</p><p>…</p><p>[Past]</p><p>Four boys, an old history teacher and a now childless mother stood over the stone well, now covered again. There was now chains on top and as a final send off, plain English explaining why this shouldn’t ever be opened again.</p><p>“It’s over,” Sapnap said.</p><p>“Three weeks of terror,” the gruff history teacher said. He’d been named Oldman or something, he moved away after this. His voice had a grim humor. “Three children killed, two adults. And all we had to do to put it back was practically bait it like a mouse on a trap.”</p><p>His eyes turned to George. “You listen here, young man—”</p><p>“They’ve had a rough day, let’s just get out of here,” the mother said. She gestured them out, but George felt the history teacher’s eyes on his back.</p><p>He wasn’t surprised when the woman’s back was turned, he pulled George aside properly this time, jabbing a finger in his chest. “You’re the one the curse is tied to. You’re the one who first made eye contact with it. It’s marked you. When it comes back, you’ll be the only one able to put it back. You’re the only one who can see it properly. You know properly how horrible it looks.”</p><p>“I don’t—I can’t,” George stammered.</p><p>“Your friends’ lives depend on it.”</p><p>“Stephen Olderman, leave that boy alone—are you daft?” His neighbor and the mother of one of those boys he’d never learned the name of cut in, shuffling him back to the safety of his group of friends.</p><p>But they were never the same. Ant was haunted. Bad was always itching at his skin. And Sap shuddered, a small tick came over him. Almost as if maybe George hadn’t saved Sapnap in time. That the thing had taken apart of Sapnap with it when it was sealed. Like it called Sapnap to it.</p><p>…</p><p>[Present]</p><p>Sapnap had to have let it out. He was the only one who had any reason to. He was—possessed to. It couldn’t be helped. He couldn’t blame Sapnap.</p><p>But with Ant and Bad taken care of, and Sapnap willing to let it out. Then the only person left that could be a threat was…him. George was alone.</p><p>And it floored him. He sunk to the ground, suddenly his mind too blank to think about planning some brilliant escape.</p><p>He could hear the room next to the one he was in being searched and he decided he couldn’t run anymore. He was facing the creature. He was the only one who could see it. The thing that called itself Dream.</p><p>George stood, crossed the room quickly, his heart beating so hard he felt faint, his vision swimming at the edges. He gripped the brass doorknob and twisted it, throwing it open and getting ready to confront the monster.</p><p>It exited the room it had been in, clearly having heard George. It stood a few inches taller than him, with the white mask covering its face. It seemed, put-off, George had just revealed himself. Standing weaponless and unprepared before the monster, George just grit his teeth.</p><p>“I can’t take this anymore.”</p><p>Dream tilted his head, a question.</p><p>“You’re going to keep hunting me down. No matter where I go. I can’t vanquish you. Not with Sapnap…under your control. I give up. Kill me.”</p><p>Dream took a step forward, raising the sword, but he didn’t move to kill George, seemingly giving him time to change his mind.</p><p>“It’s going to come down to this. We banished you before, but that wasn’t enough. You’d already taken your—taken something—someone—to coerce us into letting you out again. If Sapnap could be…fixed—you’d do it again.”</p><p>Dream lowered his head. A nod or small sign of acceptance. Maybe it was nothing.</p><p>“We fucked up. We opened your tomb. And now…Ant’s a cat. Bad’s this weird…monster. Sapnap is possessed by something and nearly killed me and you—” George spread his arms wide. “I guess…I’m done running. I’m done.”</p><p>Dream took a step forward, pressing the sword to his chest, then lowered it until it was digging into his stomach. He was planning to disembowel him.</p><p>“Just one question for you?” George questioned.</p><p>The monster looked at him.</p><p>“Why me? Why can I see you?”</p><p>Dream lowered the sword again, and grabbed George by the collar, dragging him close. He was close enough he could feel his breath hitting Dream’s mask</p><p>“I wanted you to see me when I killed you,” Dream said, and ran him through.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is really an incomplete drabble idea in my head. This is my first time writing these characters and just wanted to try it out. Ideally for a future multi-chaptered Demon Serial Killer Dream and George AU, I'd get into more slow burn, cat-and-mouse shit, but ah, I just need to flex writing muscles right now. </p><p>Ideally, I can finish The Woods and then consider it. Hm. Dunno.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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